Bottle Bill Expansion Passed out of the Senate.

Thanks for Your Support: All Priority Waste Reduction and Recycling Bills pass out of their houses of origin!

Bottle Bill Expansion Passed out of the Senate.

CAW-sponsored SB 1625 (Corbett) cleared a big hurdle today, making it off the Senate floor with a 21 to 18 vote. This bill aims to expand California's successful container recycling program to include all plastic bottles which will significantly reduce plastic litter pollution. This measure will result in the recycling of more than 3 billion additional plastic bottles, annually reducing littered and landfilled plastic waste by 130,000 tons and providing local governments with an additional $100 million dollars. The expansion of California's Container Recycling Law was the #1 recommendation of the California Ocean Protection Council's recommendations on marine debris.

Shopping Bag Reduction Bill Advances to Senate.

CAW sponsored AB 2058 (Levine), which would institute the toughest-in-the-nation litter abatement law for carryout bags, passed out of the Assembly May 28 with a 44-33 vote. This bill would require bag diversion benchmarks be met or would require retailers charge a per-bag fee. AB 2058 would also give local governments the option to charge fees on plastic bags immediately. AB 2058 will next be heard in a Senate policy committee.

Toxic Packaging Phase-Out Bill Moves out of Assembly.

CAW-Sponsored AB 2505 (Brownley) passed out of the Assembly May 28 and now heads to the Senate. The bill will help prevent human and environmental exposure to toxins as well as encourage the recycling of consumer packaging by phasing out the use of toxic, non-recyclable PVC packaging. Previously, this bill passed out of Assembly Appropriations May 22 and passed out of the Asm. ESTM committee on April 15. AB 2505 is now headed to the State Senate.

Compostable Organics Management Bill heads to the Senate.

AB 2640 (Huffman) made it off the Assembly Floor May 28 and now moves to the Senate. AB 2640 would help expand the state's composting infrastructure by providing grants for facility operators to overcome regulatory barriers. The money for these grants would be generated through a fee on the use of green materials as landfill cover, a practice that has significant environmental impacts. Previously, the bill passed off the Assembly Floor May 28, passed out of Assembly Appropriations May 22, and passed out of the Assembly Natural Resources Committee on April 14th with a 5-3 vote.



Recycling News

May 20 - SF Plastic Bag Ban Expands to Pharmacies

May 21 -Beverage Container Recycling Rate Rises to 67%

May 28 - Report Contends That Recycling Is Not So Wasteful



Please Help Support Californians Against Waste - DONATE NOW!

Over the next three months, CAW's resources will be challenged as we work to advance several major waste prevention and recycling measures. Your online contribution today will help us to full staff up. We have several excellent summer internship candidates, but lack the resources to hire them. We would greatly appreciate your most generous contribution.

The Recycling Advocate is published at least twice monthly during the legislative session by the environmental group Californians Against Waste.

NPR: Old Electronics Are a New Gold Mine

NPR: Old Electronics Are a New Gold Mine

Kobe Comes Clean Over Snake-Soaring Slam Dunk

More Kobe Bryant news? Hey, we’re just giving the people what they want.

Anyway, we all fondly remember Bryant’s death-defying jump over a moving Aston Martin. And our good buddy John Ireland from KCAL-TV caught up with Kobe to get an explanation about his awesome aerial.



Now, Kobe Knievel has done it again - this time soaring over a pool full of snakes to make a super slam dunk. And Ireland once again finds a pot o’ gold, as he gets the latest story from the aspiring Lakers stuntman. But John didn’t get the same answers as before.

During Monday’s practice, Ireland quizzed Kobe about his latest adventure in leaping. And the conversation went a little something like this:

John: “A new Hyperdunk thing has hit the Internet where you jump over a pool of snakes.”

Kobe: “Yeah.”

John: “Is that real?”

Kobe: “Absolutely.”

John: “You jumped over that pool and dunked?”

Kobe: “I did jump over that pool.”

John: “So it’s not like the Aston Martin?”

Kobe (pseudo-offended) : “I jumped over a car!”

Another reporter: “Were there snakes in the pool?”

Kobe: “100 … about 140 of ‘em.”

Yet another reporter: “And all poisonous, right?”

Kobe: “Anacondas, red bellied snakes … uh, there weren’t no black mambas, they’re a little too big.”






(Video of the snake jump to refresh our readers’ memory)

Bryant went on to describe his day hanging out with the Jackass crew - calling it a “hell of a time“, fondly referring to the Jackassers as “classic idiots“, but adding that he “loved every minute of it.”

However, Ireland was persistent to get the scoop on the snake jump:

John: “And the dunk was real. You actually jumped over the pool.”

Kobe: “I did jump over the pool. I had a little assistance, maybe.”

John: “With Hollywood?”

Kobe: “From the Hyperdunks.”

And with that, the interview ended in a round of good-natured laughter.

Great job as always, John! For next time, try to get an explanation of the Ron Artest interview. Hollywood & Hyperdunks were obviously of no help.

Hazardous Waste Minimization Program

The Region 8 Hazardous Waste Minimization Program (HWMP) provides advice and assistance to authorized state governments on matters related to the development, execution, and monitoring of hazardous waste minimization policies, plans, and programs. The HWMP places special emphasis on and supports national, regional, and state efforts to reduce the most persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) chemicals in hazardous waste streams.

GOALS
DEFINITION
BACKGROUND

Program Goals
The Hazardous Waste Minimization Program strives to:

Facilitate the achievement of PBT reduction goals by developing and providing necessary resources and waste minimization tools to state hazardous waste programs;

Measure the effectiveness and impact of state hazardous waste minimization activities on priority chemical reductions by conducting chemical and waste generation data analyses;

Disseminate technical and program information to the states, industry, and the general public;

Integrate waste minimization into other EPA programs and divisions.
What is Waste Minimization?
Waste Minimization is the reduction of wastes at their source before they are generated. Waste Minimization techniques focus on source reduction or environmentally sound recycling activities that reduce the volume and/or toxicity of hazardous wastes generated.
Even when hazardous wastes are stringently regulated and managed, they may sometimes pose environmental concerns. Accidents during handling and transportation of hazardous wastes can result in releases to the environment. EPA and the public devote billions of dollars annually to cleaning up contamination from past mismanagement of chemical wastes and properly managing wastes that are currently being generated. Better efforts to reduce chemical waste before it is even generated (i.e. waste minimization) would help lessen these concerns, as well as the need for these public and private expenditures on cleanups in the future.

Background
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has historically devoted much of its efforts on the "cradle-to-grave" management of hazardous wastes, including the development of controls at the ends of waste streams and the treatment and cleanup of pollutants after their generation. The shift in recent years from this traditional emphasis has been to a growing focus on the prevention of pollution at the source wherever possible.
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), as amended by the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments (HSWA) of 1984, describes a national policy emphasizing the primary priority as source reduction. In 1990, Congress further confirmed the key role of pollution prevention over waste management in environmental protection by passing the Pollution Prevention Act. On November 18, 1994, EPA released the Waste Minimization National Plan, which focuses on reducing the generation and subsequent release to the environment of the most persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic constituents (PBTs) in hazardous wastes.

Health is wealth,

Health is wealth, goes the old adage and it fits well with any generation. In the recent times we have a lot of engagements that make taking care of ourselves difficult to manage. As a result of which, while jet setting in different zones at work and at play, we take our health for granted. Most people equate health with eating regular meals and feasting on junk food. Even when cough and fever catch up on people, they think it is a part and parcel of their daily life. Most of them avoid doctors or a thorough investigation. Cold, Cough, Blood Pressure or an upset stomach and other such physical discrepancies are nothing but an indication that some thing has gone amiss in your body. If you are lucky then the body mechanisms will take care of their own, by balancing such discrepancies with little help from you- if you care to take some medicines, that is. This attribute of the body to balance the imbalances within is subject to age and the wear and tear of the body. So when you are younger, you will realize that being fit was never a rigorous task. But once age catches up, you will have to take small measures to keep your body’s wear and tear and defense mechanisms in a good condition at all times. That is the reason why doctors advise older people to have less spicy and oily food (risk of cholesterol) as the digestive track is not strong enough to sustain such heavy food.



But the true threat lies in the fact that even the younger generations face the risk of high anxiety thereby leading to high blood pressure, stress, fatigue, and tiredness. The fast track generation is exposed to great risk. This can lead to a decline in the average life expectancy too. It is not surprising, therefore, to learn that people below the age of 30 become victims of heart attack. In order to have a good and a healthy life, one needs to understand that health implies the well being of both physical and mental conditions of one’s body. One needs to keep his mental health in a great shape as well. Yoga, meditation and practicing the ancient Mudras has gained popularity in the recent age, as they ensure the well being of the mind as well as the body.



Merely going to the gym and having a perfect 10 body is not the answer to a healthy life. One needs to have good levels of resistance and body mechanisms in order to ensure that one’s life is long and healthy. Living a life that embodies virtues like patience, tolerance, good will and a good behavior towards people at large makes sure that one’s life is pleasant. When the mind is at peace, you realize that you have suddenly started living. For good physical health, it is important to understand your body and not to stress or cause any harm to it by smoking, or drinking. Eat well, and avoid anything that could cause harm to your body in the long run. Remember that health is wealth, and the secret to a happy and healthy long life is the well being of the mind and the body.

Hot Issues

California's Bottle & Can Recycling Law--The Bottle Bill


The nearly 20 year history of the California Bottle Bill has demonstrated that the combination of consumer recycling incentives and a convenient recycling infrastructure will result in greater recycling.

Since 1988, Californians have recycled more than 10 million tons of aluminum, glass and plastic beverage containers. No other recycling program or policy in this state has resulted in higher recycling levels, and no program of its kind in the country has been found to be more cost effective.

Press Release: California Has Record-High Recycling Rates>>

N. Pacific humpback whale population rises

HONOLULU (AP) -- Once hunted to the brink of extinction, humpback whales have made a dramatic comeback in the North Pacific Ocean over the past four decades, a new study says.

The study released Thursday by SPLASH, an international organization of more than 400 whale watchers, estimates there were between 18,000 and 20,000 of the majestic mammals in the North Pacific in 2004-2006.

Their population had dwindled to less than 1,500 before hunting of humpbacks was banned worldwide in 1966.

"It's not a complete success, but it's definitely very encouraging in terms of the recovery of the species," said Jeff Walters, co-manager of the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary.

The study, sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is the most comprehensive analysis ever of any large whale population, said David Mattila, science coordinator for the sanctuary.

At least half of the humpback whales migrate between Alaska and Hawaii, and that population is the healthiest, Mattila said.

But isolated populations that migrate from Japan and the Philippines to Russia are taking a longer to recover after whaling operations ceased, he said.

"Whales are long-lived and give birth one at a time .... so if the population gets pushed too low, it may take quite awhile to come back. Maybe that's what's happening in the west," Mattila said.

The whales are protected under federal laws that include the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.

Their resurgence could spark a debate over whether they should still be considered endangered, said Naomi McIntosh, superintendent for the humpback sanctuary.

"Those discussions are bound to happen, and we knew that going into the study, we anticipated it," she said. "I think it's too early to make that call."

The number of collisions between whales and boats has been increasing, probably because the population is larger, Walters said. Whale entanglements in marine debris, fishing gear and aquaculture structures also are a growing concern.

The whale count was made based on data collected from Hawaii, Mexico, Asia, Central America, Russia, the Aleutians, Canada and the United States' northwest coast.

The study used a system of photographing whale flukes - the lobes of a whale's tail - in six different feeding and breeding areas around the world, and then matching the pictures with whale flukes photographed in wintering areas.

SUP, Stand up Paddle Boarders

www.paddlesurfhawaii.com my kind of site

Ban on Plastic Bags Broadened in San Francisco

by Ashley Schiller on May 22nd, 2008



Post a comment San Francisco’s unique plastic bag ban extended Tuesday to include pharmacies operating five or more locations in the city, according to NBC.

The ordinance went into effect in November, first banning grocery stores from giving customers non-biodegradable plastic bags. The stores must use recyclable paper bags, reusable bags, or bio-plastic bags made of corn or potato starch.

Now the ban also applies to multiple-location pharmacies such as Walgreens, Longs and Rite Aid.

According to the article, San Francisco’s ban is the first of its kind in the country.

To learn where you can recycle plastic bags in your area, use Earth 911’s recycling locator.

California Reaches Record Recycling Levels

Breaking News: California Reaches Record Recycling Levels - Legislation Proposes Recycling Expansion



The California Department of Conservation today unveiled a new report showing that Californians are recycling a record number of beverage containers. More than 14.7 billion beverage containers were recycled by Californians in 2007, an 11% increase over 2006 levels, and 50% more than were recycled just five years ago.


Overall, nearly one million tons of glass, aluminum, and plastic beverage containers are now recycled in California under the state's 20 year old Container Recycling Law. No other state comes close to matching this level of container recycling.


"We attribute the surge in container recycling levels to several factors," said Mark Murray, executive director of the environmental group Californians Against Waste. "There is an increased concern for the environment and a desire by the public to do something-- including growing awareness of the role recycling can play in combating climate change. But certainly a huge factor in this recent surge has been legislation to increase the consumer refund value on containers to 5 and 10 cents."


In 2006, AB 3056 by Assembly Member Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley), enacted a package of reforms and updates to the Container Recycling Law, including an increase in consumer refund values from 4 cents, to 5 cents on containers under 24 ounces, and 10 cents on containers 24 ounces and larger.


"It's great to see so many Californians responding positively to the new bottle bill. Recycling is a win-win for consumers and the environment," Assembly Member Loni Hancock said. "Recycling your bottles and cans saves money, reduces litter, and cuts pollution, including greenhouse gases. I'm proud to be part of such a successful policy."


Benefits of Recycling: Record high recycling levels in 2007 have:

· reduced atmospheric CO2 emissions by over 2 million tons;

· reduced other toxic air pollutants by over 1 million tons;

· reduced water pollution by almost 5 thousand tons;

· saved enough energy to power roughly 400,000 homes for one year.

With the record growth in recycling and the affirmation of recycling program success, legislation has been introduced to expand the scope of containers covered by the consumer recycling incentives.


Senate Bill 1625 by State Senator Ellen Corbett (D-San Leandro) will expand California's recycling program to cover all plastic bottles regardless of contents or container type, which would add 6.5 billion containers to the program.


"Plastics are the fastest growing part of California's waste stream," said Senator Corbett. "By expanding the program to include additional plastics we significantly reduce our carbon dioxide levels and keep a significant amount of plastics out of our waterways and oceans."


Critical Recycling Vote Tomorrow (May 22)


SB 1625 (Corbett) faces a key vote in the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday, May 22. The measure must then pass off the floor of the State Senate by Friday, May 30.


SB 1625 tracks 2007 recommendations by Governor Schwarzenegger's Ocean Protection Council, which proposed expanding the scope of plastic containers covered by the Container Recycling Law as a strategy for combating plastic litter, waste and marine debris.


The measure is supported by local governments, recycling companies, and environmental organizations.

SB 1625 is opposed by plastic bottle manufacturers and resin producers, as well as consumer product companies (Clorox, Procter & Gamble).

In a Landfill, How Long Does Trash Really Last?

By: Brie Cadman (View Profile)


We’ve all been there—at the beach, empty beer bottle in hand, a trash can, but no recycling bin in sight. So we dump the bottle in the normal trash, perhaps feeling guilty we weren’t able to recycle it, perhaps not. Most likely, we rapidly forget about it—out of sight, out of mind, and onto the next beer.

The bottle, like the rest of our trash, may slip easily from our hands and minds, but it doesn’t leave our collective refuse piles so quickly. Landfills, which are lined with clay and plastic, layered with soil, and capped, are not extremely hospitable when it comes to microbial degradation. The three necessary components for decomposition—sunlight, moisture, oxygen—are hard to come by in a landfill; items are more likely to mummify than to break down.

But how long do things last? These rough estimates, compiled from U.S. National Park Service, United States Composting Council, New Hampshire Department of Environmental Sciences, and the New York City government, give an idea of how long our consumables remain after we’ve kissed them goodbye.

Glass Bottle—One Million Years
Okay, we don’t really know whether a glass bottle takes a million years, two million years, or a million years and one day to degrade since no one has been monitoring them for that long. But suffice it to say, when a glass bottle isn’t recycled, it sticks around for a really, really long time. Glass is primarily of composed of silica—the same material as sand—and doesn’t break down even under the harshest environments. Given the relatively inert conditions of a landfill, it’s likely the bottle of beer our forefathers sipped is still at large.

Plastic Bags—Unknown, Possibly 500+ Years
Plastic bags also have a hard time decomposing; estimates range from ten to twenty years when exposed to air to 500–1,000 years in a landfill. Since microbes don’t recognize polyethylene—the major component of plastic bags—as food, breakdown rates by this means in landfills is virtually nil. Though plastic bags can photodegrade, sunlight in landfills is scarce. Made with petroleum and rarely recycled, many cities have banned them in order to curb consumption and prevent their long-lasting presence in litter (e.g., the Great Pacific Garbage Patch—an island you don’t want to visit).

Plastic Beverage Bottles—Unknown, Possible 500+ years
Bottles face the same problem as plastic bags. Most soda and water bottles are composed of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a petroleum-based product that tends to last a long time in a landfill. Even newer bottles that claim to be biodegradable or photodegradable may take much longer than advertised. According to the Air and Waste Association, biodegradable plastics made with the addition of starch may just simply disintegrate into smaller non-degradable pieces: they don’t break down; they break up.

top The Ten Most Important Satellites Orbiting Earth Now

Today, a satellite was involved in your life. Whether you checked a weather report, watched SportsCenter or looked for your mom's house on Google Maps, you did something that would have been impossible without an automated spacecraft orbiting hundreds of miles above your head. But how many of these satellites do you know by name? Here are the ten you need to know, because they make modern life possible.



First, two caveats: most of these satellites are representative of an entire class of satellites. There may be others that serve similar functions, but the satellites listed are exemplars. Also, the list is obviously U.S.-centric. If you live in Europe or Asia, there are likely different satellites that fill the roles of these all-star orbiters.

Hubble Space Telescope - By taking thousands of breathtaking photos unhindered by the blurring effects of Earth's atmosphere, the Hubble has brought the beauty and mystery of space to more people than any other observatory, not to mention the massive amount of scientific research accomplished with it.

Galaxy 14 - This communications relay carries digital TV signals for much of the east coast, including ESPN, Lifetime, Sci-Fi, CNN, A&E and my personal favorite, the History Channel.

GOES-12 - From its high-altitude geosynchronous orbit, GOES-12 keeps a constant watch on weather conditions in most of North America.

The Moon - Tides, werewolves, the Apollo Program: without our natural satellite, we'd have none of these things.

KH-13 - This U.S. spy satellite is so secret, even the name is probably wrong (the government started giving them random names after people caught onto to the KH numbering system). Who knows what black budget, cutting edge satellite intelligence gathering devices are capable of these days?

GPS IIR11 - The U.S. government's NAVSTAR program brought global positioning abilities first to the military, then to the general public. It takes a constellation of these things for the system to work, so IIR11 is just one cog among many. Without it, there'd be no geocaching!

GoldenEye - With the ability to fire an EM pulse that could have wiped out an entire nation's financial records, GoldenEye is typical of fictional satellites and representative of our fears of orbiting weapons.

International Space Station - It's a symbol of international cooperation and a frontier outpost in the quest to colonize space. The low orbit maintained by the ISS makes it one of the easiest satellites to spot with the naked eye.

NOAA 17 - Unlike the GOES satellites, the NOAA satellites have asynchronous orbits, spinning around the globe to spot developing weather patterns that affect billions of people.

LANDSAT 7 - NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey teamed up in the 1970s to create a catalogue of Earth images shot from space. Since then, not only has the data improved with huge advances in digital photography, but numerous companies (including Google) have licensed the images for their mapping software.


Huh, I didn't realize Hubble was so close. I expected it to be much further out.



I'll admit it. I laughed at the GoldenEye joke. It brings up an interesting question though: Is James Bond sci-fi? Daniel Craig version not so much, but Roger Moore version yes.



The Moon is also where the alien civilization that built Stonehenge and colonized Atlantis keeps their robotic heads full of secret alien information about the crystal skulls and the Mayan apocalypse.




I feel like the Moon should get double booking, and not just because of all the reasons Braak listed. Tides are really damn important. Werewolves, less so, though they do form a vital part of the pet shampoo industry.

Medical Records: Good or Bad

Here are two stories covering the good and bad of personal health records (phr). While the idea of having all your medical records in one place sounds good on paper, I am unconvinced that it is worth the loss of privacy it comes with. It isn't the fear of the system being hacked as much as the number of people who will have access to it.

For the system to be of any value every doctors office, laboratory, clinic, and hospital in America will have access. That means every health care worker has access and no system with that many people can be secured.

Soaring Over the Alps on Homemade Jet Wings

By Dave Demerjian May 16, 2008

Playing to a mesmerized audience, Swiss pilot and adventurer (some might say nutcase) Yves Rossy has soared above the Alps with homemade jet-powered wings strapped to his back.

Rossy, an extreme sports guy who has spent years assembling his wings, casually stepped out of an airplane at 7,500 feet, unfolded the wings and quickly passed from free fall to mellow glide. He then fired up the wings' engines and accelerated to more than 180 mph.

As if that weren't cool enough, Rossy showed off a bit, making a few dives, some figure eights and a 360-degree barrel roll before landing at an airfield near Lake Geneva.

"That was to impress the girls," he said after the five-minute flight.

It's not your average DIY project, but then again Rossy doesn't seem to be your average guy. One look at the video proves that.


Fusionman, as the 47-year-old adventurer calls himself, is intimately familiar with flight. As a military pilot he spent years flying Hunter, Tiger F-5 and Mirage III jets, and he flies airliners for Swiss International Airlines.

He's spent several years developing the carbon fiber wing, which is eight feet long and features four German jet engines that provide 200 pounds of thrust. Rossy and his sponsors, which include the Swiss watch company Hublot, have spent $190,000 on the project, and with no plans to bring the wing to market, there's no guarantee they'll get a return on their investment.

The flight above the Alps was a big test for Fusionman and his wings, and it went off without a hitch. His mother wasn't even worried, explaining to the Associated Press, "He knows what he's doing."

But it hasn't always been smooth sailing -- er, flying -- for Rossy. Damage to a set of test wings in 2007 forced him to build another prototype, and he lost control during a jump three years ago and didn't deploy his chute until he was a mere 1,500 feet above the ground.

Soaring above the Alps is only the start. Rossy is planning to cross the English Channel -- a flight of about 23 miles -- by the end of the year. But his dream is to fly over the

How to Escape From a Black Hole

Written by Nancy Atkinson

According to Einstein's theory of general relativity, black holes are regions of space where gravity is so strong that not even light can escape. And in the 1970's physicist Stephen Hawking asserted that any information sucked inside a black hole would be permanently lost. But now, researchers at Penn State have shown that information can be recovered from black holes.

A fundamental part of quantum physics is that information cannot be lost, so Hawking's claim has been debated. His idea was generally accepted by physicists until the late 1990s, when many began to doubt the assertion. Even Hawking himself renounced the idea in 2004. Yet no one, until now, has been able to provide a plausible mechanism for how information might escape from a black hole. A team of physicists led by Abhay Ashtekar, say their findings expand space-time beyond its assumed size, providing room for information to reappear.

Ashtekar used an analogy from Alice in Wonderland: "When the Cheshire cat disappears, his grin remains," he said. "We used to think it was the same way with black holes. Hawking's analysis suggested that at the end of a black hole's life, even after it has completely evaporated away, a singularity, or a final edge to space-time, is left behind, and this singularity serves as a sink for unrecoverable information."

But the Penn State team suggest that singularities do not exist in the real world. "Information only appears to be lost because we have been looking at a restricted part of the true quantum-mechanical space-time," said Ashtekar. "Once you consider quantum gravity, then space-time becomes much larger and there is room for information to reappear in the distant future on the other side of what was first thought to be the end of space-time."

According to Ashtekar, space-time is not a continuum as physicists once believed. Instead, it is made up of individual building blocks, just as a piece of fabric, though it appears to be continuous, is made up of individual threads. "Once we realized that the notion of space-time as a continuum is only an approximation of reality, it became clear to us that singularities are merely artifacts of our insistence that space-time should be described as a continuum."

To conduct their studies, the team used a two-dimensional model of black holes to investigate the quantum nature of real black holes, which exist in four dimensions. That's because two-dimensional systems are simpler to study mathematically. But because of the close similarities between two-dimensional black holes and spherical four-dimensional black holes, the team believes that this approach is a general mechanism that can be applied in four dimensions. The group now is pursuing methods for directly studying four-dimensional black holes.

Tape Rotation

Offsite Tape Storage and Tape Rotation

If a disaster strikes is your company's data safe? Do you store all of your data in one location? How long would it take you to recover and get back to business? A media vault or tape vault service helps protect your data in the event that disaster strikes.
Off-site tape storage vaults are climate controlled locations with very strict tolerances for temperature and humidity to prolong the life of the tape. These locations also have the fire protection and physical security you expect with any off-site storage facility.

Our uniformed security professionals pickup your backup tapes on a regular schedule to minimize lost data. They will also bring an old one to be used again. The tapes are scanned for tracking and to document their location on each step of the process. Tapes are then transported in a secure vehicles to our media vault facility. This tape rotation assures you of having a recent copy of your data.

In the event that your tape is needed anytime day or night, simply notify us and we will deliver the tape to your disaster recovery location.

Record Nations makes finding the right tape rotation service easy. We get you up to four competitive quotes with one simple request.

Is a Plane Boarding Pass a Threat?

We have looked at the stub from the boarding pass and wondered what to do with it. You most likely have found two or three in the seat pocket from the seats prior holders. But is the information dangerous?

Alone no, but it gives enough insight into you to get everything an identity thief needs. They get your name, a good idea of your home town and some recent travel information. The thief uses these bits of information to get more form unsuspecting customer service reps.

Always shred everything with your name or any other personally identifying information.

Read More.

china

3 Frontiers in Earthquake Tech to Aid China—and Help the U.S.
From a string of GPS units embedded along the California faults to motion-sensor rigs deployed across Japan, researchers have already set their sights on the next generation of earthquake prevention. Could authorities in rural China have implemented new strategies to avert some of this week’s tragedy? And will a detection system for America’s aging infrastructure be ready before the next big one?


Rescue workers in China’s Sichuan province searched for survivors on Tuesday as researchers the world over continue to hunt for solutions. (Photograph by AFP via Getty Images)

struck by a magnitude 7.9 earthquake two days ago, it was the latest in a string of disasters offered the world over by Mother Nature. Now it has unraveled into a full-blown crisis. The official death toll has passed 12,000, but experts believe it will climb beyond 18,000. A number of factors are contributing to the fatalities, such as blocked roadways and a series of at least 30 aftershocks in Sichuan province. The quake itself is no surprise—the region is well-known for its seismic activity—but the persistent threat of earthquakes and, despite decades of research, the lack of warning technology, is alarming. So what can scientists, engineers and lawmakers do to prepare for the next shockwave?


Can a network of GPS sensors store enough data online to scout the Bay Area's looming quake? And could the rig work in the Chinese countryside?

EarthScope's array of 400 unmanned seismometers and more than 125 stationary GPS instruments is beginning to blanket the U.S. for quake data collection. (Photographs Courtesy of EarthScope)Geologists who specialize in earthquakes have become expert gamblers. By analyzing seismic data from sensors and historical records of past events, researchers attempt to calculate the odds in a given region within a specific timeframe. But that timeframe is generally measured in decades—or even centuries. For example, it's estimated that, on average, San Francisco's Hayward fault generates an earthquake every 140 years—and we just passed the 140-year mark. "That would basically be our equivalent of the Kobe earthquake that hit Japan in '95," says Michael Blanpied, associate coordinator of the Earthquake Hazards Program at the United States Geological Survey (USGS). "That led to 5000 deaths." So while a major quake in San Francisco is no certainty this year, or even in the next decade, the odds are getting worse, and the danger harder to ignore.

In Sichuan province, the danger was clear. A magnitude 7.5 earthquake hit the region in 1933, killing more than 9000 people, and geologists have detected smaller events with relative frequency. "We estimated the seismic hazard and risk for that region," says Kaye Shedlock, who worked with China when she headed the USGS's hazard and risk program. "It's riddled with large faults, to accommodate that sort of motion. It moves more often than our San Andreas fault." Compared to some areas that might expect an interval of a century or more between major earthquakes, then, the Sichuan Basin is an extremely active spot. Unfortunately, it also appears to lack the level of monitoring required for accurate forecasting. "In the sliding scale of where you put your resources," Shedlock says, "that's an area where it's difficult to monitor—difficult to get to, because of the mountains—and it's less populated than other vulnerable cities, like Beijing."

The key to forecasting is data, which means a comprehensive, unified monitoring system, which is what Shedlock is trying to provide for North America. She's the program director for EarthScope, a National Science Foundation–funded effort to install thousands of sensors throughout the continent. The instruments range from portable seismometers to clusters of stationary GPS receivers deployed along known fault lines. With all of EarthScope's data freely available online, Shedlock hopes to improve our understanding of the continent's seismic activity—and improve the state of the art of forecasting. More sensors and better analysis could narrow the window for specific threats, and provide more accurate damage estimates and long-term warnings. Ultimately, more data can only be gathered by a larger, more sophisticated network of sensors. Most of the sensors in the U.S. are currently gathered in the western part of the country, while Shedlock expects China to eventually develop its own unified system. But for now, population density remains paramount there, which means Beijing is heavily monitored, while rural areas, such as Sichuan province, remain in the dark.


Seconds to Impact /// Detection
As China staggers, will Japan's new motion monitors set the world on the path to quake prediction? And can the U.S. get its early warning system up and running fast enough?

Japan's early warning system rigs seismographs into the ground to provide detailed estimates within 20 seconds of an earthquake occurrence. (Images Courtesy of Japan Meteorological Agency)Last October, Japan rolled out the world's first national early warning system for earthquakes. Less sophisticated systems of the past included motion sensors that, in the event of strong movement, would cause bullet trains to brake. Now the system is designed to detect an earthquake—and quickly project the level of shaking in surrounding provinces. Alarms will sound, air traffic controllers will be alerted, and lives, potentially, will be saved. But when the warning comes, the threat won't be far behind. Seismic waves travel at an average of 6 kilometers (about 3.7 miles) per second, covering hundreds of miles in a single minute. That's enough time to warn students to duck under their desks, and possibly enough time to clear a bridge or stop a train. But it isn't enough time to evacuate a building. If China had the resources for an early warning system similar to Japan's—even one exponentially larger—it likely would not have helped the 900 students trapped in a collapsed school in Sichuan province, or the thousands buried in buildings throughout the region. To save them, researchers would need to be able to predict an earthquake minutes or hours before the shockwave hit.

"Earthquake prediction is one of the holy grails of science," Shedlock says. "The Chinese worked much harder at this than us, and appeared to have early successes. Then another earthquake happened that didn't behave like the previous one." In the course of evaluating and authorizing earthquake research, the USGS has spent decades following attempts to predict quakes. "The research being done spans the spectrum—from serious, scholarly, scientific research, to pure speculation," says Blanpied. For example, when geologists have created small earthquakes in the lab, they've noticed an acceleration of the sliding along the fault, just before the quake hits. But every attempt to detect this acceleration has failed to produce solid predictive data. Despite a long-running experiment in Parkfield, Calif., which included highly sensitive instrumentation, the only evidence of the magnitude 6 earthquake that finally hit in 2004 was the earthquake itself.

So while prediction remains something of a scientific dead end, the USGS is working with researchers in California to develop an early warning system similar to Japan's. The three-year study will wrap up next year, but the results already appear promising. The University of California at Berkeley's ElarmS system, which uses data from the state's existing seismic network, is currently in the pre-prototype stage. However, Blanpied says that when ElarmS was tested on a magnitude 5 quake, it could have determined shaking some 15 seconds before it started. The precise amount of advance notice depends on a site's relation to the epicenter, but considering the distance between Los Angeles and the San Andreas fault, a similar system could provide the city with what Blanpied calls "a fair amount of warning time." Early earthquake warning in the U.S. would require upgrades to the existing monitoring system, as well as increased manpower, but it's feasible. In China, though, it's a distant prospect.


Last Resort /// Engineering
How can next-generation materials science help quakeproof American infrastructure? And does rural China have a low-tech option? More than high-tech solutions, the biggest preventative measure in Sichuan province—given the rural population impact registered at right—may have been fixing old infrastructure. (Photograph by Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images; Map Courtesy of USGS)

Whether you can forecast an earthquake decades before it hits or warn the public seconds in advance, there's no way to stop it from happening. So the best way to prepare for an earthquake is to prepare your infrastructure. Researchers are developing materials, such as flexible concrete that will bend before it breaks, that can absorb the energy of sudden shaking. For critical infrastructure, such as bridges and dams, a more malleable concrete could save lives and money, but the research and the materials can be costly. Other research involves isolating the energy from the ground movement, creating a kind of shock absorber for a home, or allowing towering retail shelves (think Home Depot) to rattle without tipping over. In some cases, a lower-tech fix can provide significant resistance. Placing strips of nearly tearproof fabric between the layers of an adobe structure could essentially tie a building together. Even a traditional wood-frame house or building might stand up to shaking better than a concrete one. In other words, if your infrastructure is built using the right materials, there's a better chance it will survive an earthquake. Or at the very least, it may not land on your head.

But when it comes to nonreinforced masonry buildings, that's exactly what happens. From three-story brownstones to mid-size concrete office buildings, many of the structures in the U.S. that were built from the beginning to the middle of the last century are extremely vulnerable to earthquakes. Building codes vary from state to state (and country to country, for that matter), but as Blanpied points out, "If a magnitude 5 hit near Manhattan, it would be a disaster. Buildings would topple over." Easy as it is to criticize Chinese authorities for not retrofitting or reconstructing the buildings that collapsed in this week's earthquake, the cost of infrastructure rehabilitation is always daunting.

So what could China have done to prepare for a magnitude 7.9 earthquake in a relatively rural region, while still focusing on protecting the millions more in cities like Beijing? More sensors could have allowed for better forecasting, and an early warning system may have saved some lives. But the biggest problem may have been aging infrastructure. More quake-resistant materials, along with responsible building codes, could have at least mitigated the catastrophe. And what's true in China is true in the U.S.—securing our infrastructure requires significant resources, and a groundswell of political will. In other words, preparing for the worst is easily said, and rarely done.

Don't Forget Tortoise Day

American Tortoise Rescue Celebrates World Turtle Day May 23rd



Malibu, Calif. – May 12, 2008 – American Tortoise Rescue (ATR), a nonprofit organization established in 1990 for the rescue, rehabilitation, adoption and protection of all species of tortoise and turtle, is sponsoring World Turtle Day on May 23rd. Featured in Chase's Book of Annual Events, the day was created as an annual observance to help people celebrate and protect turtles and tortoises and their disappearing habitats around the world. Susan Tellem and Marshall Thompson, married founders of ATR, advocate humane treatment of all animals and especially reptiles.

"World Turtle Day was started to increase respect and knowledge for the world's oldest creatures. These gentle animals have been around for about 200 million years, yet they are rapidly disappearing as a result of the exotic food industry, habitat destruction and the cruel pet trade," says Tellem. "We are seeing smaller and smaller turtles coming into the rescue meaning that older adults are disappearing from the wild, and the breeding stock is drastically reduced. It is a very sad time for turtles and tortoises of the world"

Tellem and Thompson note that experts predict the complete disappearance of these creatures within the next 50 years. They recommend that adults and children do a few small things that can help to save turtles and tortoises for the next generation.

· Never buy a turtle or tortoise as it increases demand from the wild. Adopt from a rescue.
· Never remove turtles or tortoises from the wild unless it is sick or injured. If they are crossing a busy street, pick them up and send them in the same direction they were going – if you try to make them go back, they will turn right around again.
· Write letters to legislators asking them to keep sensitive habitat preserved or closed to off road vehicles.
· Report cruelty or illegal sales of turtles and tortoises to your local animal control department.
· Report any turtle or tortoise of any kind less than four inches being sold. This is illegal everywhere in the U.S.

ATR offers permanent sanctuary to injured, abandoned and lost turtles and tortoises, as well as temporary housing for those confiscated by law enforcement. The ones that are too ill or abused for adoption remain in the care of ATR permanently. Since 1990, ATR has placed about 3,000 tortoises and turtles in caring homes. Because of ATR's activities on the Internet and direct mail, the rescue enjoys a positive reputation among international humane organizations, federal and state animal protection agencies, reptile lovers and the general public. ATR assists law enforcement when undersize or endangered turtles are confiscated and provides helpful information and referrals to persons with sick, neglected or abandoned turtles.

"Outlaw vendors at the beach, at downtown Mercados and at Asian live food markets throughout the U.S. are a major problem for turtles, especially the hatchling 'red eared slider' water turtles. These have an almost 100% mortality rate due to ignorance about their care," Tellem says.

"Our ultimate goal is to stop the illegal trade in turtles and tortoises around the world. But our first job is here in the U.S. where pet stores and reptile shows sell illegal hatchling tortoises of all species," says Thompson "People who are unfamiliar with their proper care run a real risk of contracting salmonella from these turtles."

For answers to questions, adoption forms, information sheets and other information visit American Tortoise Rescue online at www.tortoise.com or by sending e-mail to info@tortoise.com.

Pacific Grove

May 9 - Pacific Grove Bans Polystyrene Food Packaging


The Pacific Grove City Council has voted unanimously to ban foamed polystyrene takeout food containers, joining a number of California cities that have done so in the past year.

Kevin Howe of the Monterey County Herald writes that it had already been policy to not use polystyrene in city facilities:

Polystyrene foam "is highly durable, persisting longer than any type of litter," City Manager Jim Colangelo said in a report to the council. It is lightweight, and its tendency to break into tiny pieces causes it to float or be blown into the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, where birds and other animals eat it, often with fatal results. Biodegradeable takeout packaging made of paper, sugarcane, corn by-products and potato starch is available locally, Colangelo said, and the council made it city policy in 1989 to not purchase or use polystyrene if biodegradeable alternatives are available.

The Sahara

Sahara made slow transition from green to desert

A picture taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASAs Terra satelliteon shows dust blowing northward out of the Sahara Desert and over the Mediterranean Sea. The Sahara became the world's biggest hot desert some 2,700 years ago after a very slow fade from green, according to a new study which clashes with the theory that desertification came abruptly.


The Sahara became the world's biggest hot desert some 2,700 years ago after a very slow fade from green, according to a new study which clashes with the theory that desertification came abruptly.

Six thousand years ago, the massive arid region dominating northern Africa was quite green, a patchwork of trees and savannas as well as many sparkling lakes.

The region, larger than Australia, also was inhabited, according to the European-US-Canadian team of scientists behind a study in Science dated May 9.

Most of the physical elements that could tell the tale of the Sahara's geographic evolution have been lost. The scientists studied layers of sediment in one of the largest remaining Sahara lakes, Yoa, in a remote spot in northern Chad, which took them back through six millennia of climate history.

They looked at sediments, did soil tests and reviewed biological indicators such as plant and tree pollen and spores that were present before the desert encroached. They also studied the remains of aquatic microorganisms.

Their findings contradicted previous modeling that indicated a rapid collapse of vegetation in the region in a sudden end to the African Humid Period, about 5,500 years ago, said Stefan Kropelin, a geologist at the Prehistoric Archaeology Institute of the University of Cologne who took part in the new study.

In 2000, a study by Peter de Menocal of Columbia University of sediments in the west of Mauritania found a sudden increase in wind-carried dust blown off the Sahara region, suggesting swift climate change.

But data from Lake Yoa shows the opposite, and the transition to desert took its time, said Kropelin. He said he believed de Menocal's data were not wrong but misinterpreted.

Jenny

Jenny, the world's oldest gorilla, celebrates her 55th birthday


The world's oldest gorilla celebrated her 55th birthday today with a four-layer frozen fruit cake and banana leaf-wrapped treats.


Jenny's caretakers at the Dallas Zoo say she's having a few joint issues and her eyesight isn't what it used to be but she still looks good for an old ape.



"It's a special milestone for us," said Todd Bowsher, curator of the zoo's Wilds of Africa exhibit. "It signifies that we've made great strides in veterinary care, nutrition and animal husbandry."


Tea-time: Jenny has a reputation for being bossy with her keepers at Dallas zoo

The International Species Information System, which maintains records on animals at 700 institutions around the world, said Jenny is the oldest gorilla in its database.



"I think it's amazing," said Kristen Lukas, curator of conservation and science at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo in Ohio and the gorilla species survival plan coordinator for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. "I think it's a testament to the good care that she's received at the Dallas Zoo and also the resilience of gorillas in general."



Lukas said gorillas in the wild normally would live to age 30 or 35. Health care and protection from predators has extended the lifespan in zoos.



Jenny gave birth in 1965 to a female named Vicki, who was sent to Alberta, Canada, at age 5. Zoo officials aren't sure why Jenny hasn't conceived again.



Jenny's keepers describe her as very sweet though a little bossy.


Tasty treat: Jenny the gorilla carts off her birthday cake this morning as she turned 55
"If she doesn't want to go out on a certain day, she doesn't," Bowsher said. "But she really likes people."


There were plenty of them at the Jake L. Hamon Gorilla Conservation Research Center Thursday, chowing down on giant sheets of chocolate and vanilla birthday cake as they peered at Jenny through the glass.



Born in the wild of western central Africa in 1953, the exact date of her birth is unknown but the zoo marks it on May 8. Jenny lived with a family on the Cape Verde islands before the Dallas Zoo acquired her in 1957.



"I remember the day she arrived," said Nancy Hamon, 89, of Dallas, whose family bought the gorilla for the zoo and continues to be among its strongest supporters.



Jenny, a 213-pound (97-kilogram) Western lowland gorilla, is one of four gorillas at the zoo.



"It's a good time for the zoo," said Sean Greene, director of Community Relations for the Dallas Zoological Society.



He said the upbeat birthday party was a welcome contrast to the tragedy that occurred in 2004 when another gorilla, 13-year-old Jabari, broke out of his enclosure. He went on a 40-minute rampage in which he snatched up a toddler with his teeth and attacked three other people before officers shot him.



So to what does Jenny attribute her longevity? She's not saying. But her vegetarian diet couldn't hurt: seeds, cereal and one of her favorites, banana peels.

Eat Bugs

Want to Help the Environment? Eat Insects.

A group of experts endorse bugs as a nutritious and sustainable food source.
by Josie Glausiusz


David Gracer lifts a giant water bug, places his thumbs in a pre-sliced slit in its underside, and flips off its head. “Smell the meat,” he says, sniffing the decapitated creature, and the people gathered around the table willingly oblige. Members of the New York Gastronauts, a club for adventurous eaters, they murmur appreciatively as they scoop out and swallow the grayish, slightly greasy insect flesh.

“Perfumey, tastes like salty apples,” one says. “Like a scented candle blended with an artichoke,” another adds.

The giant water bug, or Lethocerus indicus, a three-inch-long South Asian insect that looks uncannily like a local cockroach, is just one of the items on the menu of this bug-eating bacchanal. The Gastronauts’ meal may seem more like a reality TV stunt than a radical environmental strategy, but Gracer is on a serious mission to shake up how we all think about our food supply. Gracer, a self-described “geeky poet/nature boy” who teaches composition at a community college in Providence, Rhode Island, has made it his duty to persuade ordinary Americans to eat insects.


Gracer wants people to move away from getting their protein from traditional livestock such as cows, pigs, and chickens because raising livestock has a huge negative impact on the environment, regardless of whether the animals belong to subsistence farmers in developing countries or a Western industrial conglomerate (see “Warning: Contains Pork By-Products,” page 40). A United Nations report released in 2006 calls the livestock sector “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” The report notes that, among other adverse impacts, livestock production is responsible for 18 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions. (That’s more than what is produced by transportation worldwide.) And the problem is only going to grow, with global production of meat reaching 465 million tons by 2050, double the amount produced in 2000.

“Americans have no idea how wasteful these large mammals are,” Gracer says. “If you want to feed a lot of people, insects are the best choice in terms of getting the biggest bang for your buck.” Insects, he claims, are nutritious. Although they typically contain less protein by weight than beef or chicken—100 grams of giant water bugs or small grasshoppers, for example, have about 20 grams of protein, compared with 27 grams in the same amount of lean ground beef—they do have other benefits. For instance, grasshoppers contain just one-third of the fat found in beef, and water bugs offer almost four times as much iron. A 100-gram portion of the cooked caterpillar Usata terpsichore has about 28 grams of protein. In their dried form, as they are commonly sold in Africa, insects such as grasshoppers may contain up to 60 percent protein.

Raising insects has a low impact on the environment. They require little water, perhaps because they obtain much of their moisture from their food. It takes 869 gallons of water to produce a third of a pound of beef, about enough for a large hamburger. By contrast, to supply water to a quarter pound of crickets, Gracer simply places­ a moist paper towel at the bottom of their tank and refreshes it weekly. Insects, he says, also need less food and space than vertebrate sources of protein and therefore could replace or supplement food resources that may become scarce in the future, such as fish stocks, which a recent study indicates may collapse by 2048.

Founded in 2005, Gracer’s company, a one-man operation called Sunrise Land Shrimp, educates people about insect eating, or entomophagy. On a roughly monthly basis, Gracer will visit a high school or give a public lecture, and he recently appeared on The Colbert Report (video). Not long ago he traveled to Thailand to attend a United Nations workshop on entomophagy. “I would love to counteract the portrayal of entomophagy that we see on Fear Factor and Survivor,” he says. “It’s my interest to bring it out of the zone of freakdom.” But even Sunrise Land Shrimp doesn’t sell insects—yet. In the United States insects are generally available only as novelty foods, such as the salt-and-vinegar-flavored crickets sold by Hotlix, a California company that specializes in insect-based candies.

Goodwill Industries International (Rockville, Maryland) is calling on the federal government to enact legislation targeting the collection and recycling of unwanted consumer electronic products.
Specifically, the organization is urging the federal government to:

Assist in the development of a sustainable recycling/reuse infrastructure
Support incentives to manufacturers for product design changes
Use incentives such as tax credits for manufacturers who partner with social agencies, as well as recycling grants and other initiatives that could spur viable solutions and help stakeholders handle this problem.
Goodwill Industries routinely collects large volumes of e-scrap — bringing in 23 million pounds in 2004 alone.
"There are costs, responsibilities, and liabilities associated with serving as a collector," says Jim Gibbons, president and chief executive officer of Goodwill Industries International. "As much as 30 percent of electronics donated to Goodwill are unusable, and disposing of these products in an environmentally responsible way diverts significant resources from Goodwill’s job training programs."
Dell (Round Rock, Texas) and participating Goodwill Industries locations are expanding their e-scrap connection RECONNECT program to include 50 percent of Goodwill locations nationwide by 2008 and 50 percent of U.S. households by 2009.
There are 170 Goodwill organizations in the U.S. and each is an independent entity with its own management and supervisorial board.

Bees

POLLINATION CRISIS
Air Pollution Impedes Bees' Ability to Find Flowers

When the spread of flowers' scents are impeded, bees may be less likely to find and pollinate the flowers. A drop in pollination is reducing crops worldwide.

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 5, 2008; Page A03

Air pollution interferes with the ability of bees and other insects to follow the scent of flowers to their source, undermining the essential process of pollination, a study by three University of Virginia researchers suggests.

This Story
POLLINATION CRISIS: Air Pollution Impedes Bees' Ability to Find Flowers
Vulnerable Plants
Their findings may help unlock part of the mystery surrounding the current pollination crisis that is affecting a wide variety of crops. Scientists are seeking to determine why honeybees and bumblebees are dying off in the United States and in other countries, and the new study indicates that emissions from power plants and automobiles may play a part in the insects' demise.

Scientists already knew that scent-bearing hydrocarbon molecules released by flowers can be destroyed when they come into contact with ozone and other pollutants. Environmental sciences professor Jose D. Fuentes at the University of Virginia -- working with graduate students Quinn S. McFrederick and James C. Kathilankal -- used a mathematical model to determine how flowers' scents travel with the wind and how quickly they come into contact with pollutants that can destroy them. They described their results in the March issue of the journal Atmospheric Environment.

In the prevailing conditions before the 1800s, the researchers calculated that a flower's scent could travel between 3,280 feet and 4,000 feet, Fuentes said in an interview, but today, that scent might travel 650 feet to 1,000 feet in highly polluted areas such as the District of Columbia, Los Angeles or Houston.

"That's where we basically have all the problems," Fuentes said, adding that ozone levels are particularly high during summer. "The impacts of pollution on pollinator activity are pronounced during the summer months."

This phenomenon triggers a cycle, the authors noted, in which the pollinators have trouble finding sufficient food, and as a result their populations decline. That, in turn, translates into decreased pollination and keeps flowering plants, including many fruits and vegetables, from proliferating.

Fuentes said scientists now have a more sophisticated understanding of the signals for which insects are searching, and that air pollution rapidly eliminates as much as 90 percent of flowers' aroma.

"We now know what the pollinators are looking for when they're actually looking for the flowers," he said.

Most bees have poor eyesight, which makes scent particularly important, the researchers wrote.

Since 2006, honeybee colonies in the United States have been suffering from a widespread phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder (CCD), in which adult worker bees abandon an otherwise-healthy hive.

John P. Burand, an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst who is studying bee colony collapses, said the effects of air pollution described in the new study are probably not directly related to that phenomenon. But, he added in an e-mail: "There is no doubt that air pollution and air quality is having an effect on bees and other pollinators. It appears there is more than one factor that is contributing to the CCD phenomenon we are seeing with bees, and certainly air pollution in some fashion may be playing a role."

Burand, working with two other University of Massachusetts researchers and an insect ecologist at the University of Maine at Orono, just received a $150,000, three-year grant from the Agriculture Department to analyze microbes carried by bees that pollinate apples, squash and pumpkins. They are working with colleagues to compare the bacteria, viruses and fungi in healthy bee colonies with those in dysfunctional hives.

Richard Poirot, an air-quality planner at Vermont's Department of Environmental Conservation who helps advise the federal government on its national ozone standards, said it makes sense that the chemical reaction of floral hydrocarbons and pollutants such as ozone would reduce the power of a flower's scent and affect the insects that depend on those aromas.

"It does make sense that it certainly would be another stress factor" on pollinators, Poirot said, though he added that pollinators are declining for an array of reasons not related to pollution. "The question is, how significant is it?"

Timothy H. Tear, a senior scientist at the advocacy group the Nature Conservancy who studies the impact of air pollution on ecosystems, said the recent study confirms the extent of ozone's effects on habitats up and down the East Coast.

"We know that ozone levels continue to be high and go well beyond EPA standards for public health," Tear said. "What's been pretty consistent is the more we look at air pollution's impacts on natural resources, the more we find those impacts to be."

Tear and his colleagues have recently completed a survey of how atmospheric pollution is affecting biodiversity in the Eastern United States and concluded that high levels of ozone can decrease forest growth by as much as 30 percent.

According to numbers from Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment Ireland (Dublin), the citizens of the Emerald Isle more than doubled its 2007 goal for per-capita WEEE collection from 8.8 pounds to 19.8 pounds per person … According to the Consumer Electronics Association (Arlington, Virginia), the average U.S. consumer spent $1,405 on consumer electronics in the last 12 months, $120 more than the previous year … Kyocera Wireless Corp. (San Diego) has been awarded its eighth consecutive recycling honor by San Diego city officials for its green efforts. The company recycled 75 percent of its waste in 2007, conserving more than 3.3 million kilowatts of electricity … The Environmental Protection Agency's Region 7 office in Kansas City collected 10 tons of unwanted electronics on Earth Day … Electronics retail giant Circuit City (Richmond, Virginia) has launched a green Web site, offering consumers various ways to purchase, use and recycle electronics in an environmentally responsible manner … A broad coalition of environmental organizations came out strongly against Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman's veto of Legislative Bill 986, which would have established a producer responsibility e-scrap recovery program. "The governor has chosen to defy the wishes of a wide range of Nebraskans," said Ken Winston, a paid lobbyist for the Nebraska Sierra Club (Lincoln). "His veto only supports out-of-state special interest groups."

Digital TV Update

Digital TV switch update
The coming switch from analog to digital signals for over-the-air television transmission continues to make headlines.
The Federal Communications Commission (Washington) levied fines this week against retailers and television suppliers for violating rules that require televisions currently being sold to work easily after next year's transmission switch. Best Buy (Richfield, Minnesota), Sears Holding Corp. (Hoffman Estates, Illinois), Target Corp. (Minnesota), Wal-Mart (Bentonville, Arkansas) and seven other companies received fines for the violations. Fines ranged from $296,000, charged to Target, to the approximately $1.1 million levied against Sears.
The Consumer Electronics Association (Arlington, Virginia) has launched a campaign called Convert Your Mom, starring the Brady Bunch's Florence Henderson, which asks consumers to help their parents to weather the transmission switch.
The Consumers Union is asking the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (both of Washington) and Congress to extend the 90-day deadline for the government-issued $40 coupons for digital converter boxes. The boxes have been slow to market, making it difficult for some consumers use their coupons before they expire.
The Washington Post was the latest major paper to publish an overview of the coming switch, with some impressive photos of towers of collected televisions

E-scrap legislation from around the nation
Numerous state legislatures continue considering measures that address the proper recovery and handling of electronic waste.
Already passed by the Senate, the Connecticut House is considering Senate Bill 582, which amends last year’s passing of House Bill 7249 on several fronts, including redefining market share, and limiting orphan waste. The measure also requires that every covered electronic device sold in-state be labeled with the manufacturer's name and address.
In Hawaii, a Senate Conference Committee has scheduled a meeting for tomorrow to review House amendments to SB 2843. If the amendments are agreed upon, the bill, which establishes a producer-responsibility program, would move closer to the desk of Governor Linda Lingle for approval.
The Illinois Senate has passed SB 2313, which utilizes a producer-responsibility approach for the recovery of certain electronics, by a 52-to-zero vote.
Both chambers of the New Hampshire Legislature have agreed upon an amended HB 1584, thus the measure should be delivered to Governor John Lynch’s desk shortly for final approval. The bill establishes a state commission to study other states' approaches to recycling and proper disposal of e-scrap. The committee must report its findings before December 1st.
The New York Assembly has approved Assembly Bill 8444 by a vote of 112-to-24. The measure, which establishes a producer-responsibility system for the recovery of covered electronics, is currently being reviewed by a Senate Environmental Conservation Committee.
The House Energy and Technology Committee has progressed Oklahoma SB 1631 through its second committee reading. Creating the Oklahoma Computer Equipment Recovery Act, the measure creates a producer-responsibility system for the recovery of e-scrap.
A Rhode Island House Committee on Finance has scheduled a May 1st hearing to review HB 7880. The measure creates the Electronic Waste Prevention, Reuse and Recycling Act, utilizing a producer-responsibility approach to recover obsolete electronics